1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electric wire with terminal metal fitting that includes an electric wire that includes a conductor portion and an insulating coating portion surrounding the outer periphery of the conductor portion, and a terminal metal fitting that includes an electric-wire coupled portion coupled to a terminal portion of the electric wire.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, an electric wire with terminal metal fitting is used for a wire harness or the like routed in a vehicle. The electric wire with terminal metal fitting includes an electric wire that includes a conductor portion and an insulating coating portion surrounding the outer periphery of the conductor portion, and a terminal metal fitting that includes an electric-wire coupling portion coupled to the terminal portion of the electric wire.
Incidentally, in recent years, in the automobile industry, it has been an important problem to reduce the weight of the vehicle so as to improve the fuel efficiency taking into consideration the environment. This has attracted attention to an electric wire with terminal metal fitting that includes: an electric wire that includes a conductor portion employing a conductor portion made of aluminum or aluminum alloy, which is lighter than copper, and an insulating coating portion surrounding the outer periphery of this conductor portion; and a terminal metal fitting that includes an electric-wire coupling portion coupled to a terminal portion of this electric wire.
However, there has been a problem that aluminum is likely to corrode under the presence of water and copper ions, and thus water invasion into the coupling portion between the conductor portion made of aluminum or aluminum alloy and the terminal metal fitting made of copper is likely to cause corrosion.
Therefore, to prevent water adhesion to the conductor portion so as to prevent erosion of the conductor portion, for example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2010-165514 discloses a terminal metal fitting attachment where an anticorrosive to prevent erosion of the conductor portion is applied over the surface where the exposed conductor portion is disposed.
However, the electric wire with terminal metal fitting employing the terminal metal fitting attachment described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2010-165514 includes a large exposed portion of the core wire between a core wire barrel piece and an insulation-coating barrel piece. Accordingly, the anticorrosive applied over the inside of the barrel piece might not completely extend to the exposed portion and not achieve anticorrosion as a result.